vendredi 6 novembre 2015

Animals that don't Exist

The
Earworm

The
earworm, Lombricus auris, is
a parasitic species of worm that can infect a large number of
mammals. Rather small in size, earworms are deadly in most cases, and
responsible for a number of deaths each year. Although infections of
humans have decreased significantly since the worm was first
discovered in 1892 by Dr.
Humphrey Earbog, the worm
population seems to be thriving nonetheless, probably through a rise
in infections of animal hosts.

Earworms
mate only once, at the beginning of their life, and after that, they
start searching for a host. The host can be almost any mammal. The
worms lodge themselves in the ear of their victim (hence the name),
and start manipulating the auditory signals received by their hosts.
They have special appendages, called ceruchus (latin for string),
which they vibrate
to produce a sound that hypnotizes their victims. The host is put
into a sort of trance that will cause him to wander aimlessly, which
will usually result in his death through accident, either by falling
down a cliff, or being attacked by a predator, etc. The worm then
lays its eggs in the dead body, which will serve as nutrients for the
offspring once they hatch. The young worms will feed of the cadaver,
and, after mating, leave in search for their own host.

The
effects of the earworm have been described by a number of historic
populations around
the world, from the celts of ancient britain to the Indians of
South-America, and it is believed that the earworm is present all
over the world.

Even
though cases of death have become rare in humans, and, with the
advent of modern medecin, the infection can be treated since the
1980s, there
has been a recent resurgence of interest in the species, driven
mainly by the intelligence community, who is trying to reproduce the
hypnotic effects of the worm's
“song” for their own ends. Recent leaks of classified documents
lead us to believe that there have been several attempts in this
direction, from Britney Spears to Justin Bieber, but most of them
seem to have obtained mediocre results at best.